apple custard cake

This is a very simple cake, genoise, custard and cream. Nothing out of the ordinary and it's definitely something everyone can whip up in 2 hours, ok, maybe 2 and a half or 3. But, it's worth every effort. My family loves apples, especially crunchy ones, so I've made an apple custard for the filling of this cake.

Ingrdients:

• 6 large eggs
• 125g self raising flour (or plain flour if you prefer the more traditional genoise, but honestly, self raising flour rises better, but over, the difference is not THAT big)
• 175g caster sugar
• 50g unsalted butter
• 3 granny smith apples
• 1 pink lady apple 
• 50g corn flour
• 5 tbsps milk 
• 250ml double cream
• An electric whisk, this is absolutely essential

1. Weigh out sifted self raising flour and leave aside
2. Weigh out butter and let it soften at room temperature for 30 minutes, you want this to be VERY soft but not melted
3. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C and line 2x18cm round cake tins, yes, this is going to be quite a tall cake 
4. Put 4 eggs into a large mixing bowl with 125g caster sugar and whisk over a pan of simmering water, careful not to cook the eggs whilst you are whisking
5. Eventually, the eggs/caster sugar batter will at least triple or even quadruple in volume and thicken. You should keep whisking until the batter comes off the mixer and leave a trail of ribbon behind it and the colour at this stage should be very pale yellow, almost white
6. Add the sifted flour into the batter and very gently fold it in
7. Add in the butter and fold it in until everything has combined or became equally distributed
8. Divide the cake mixture into the two cake tins evenly and bake for 20-25 minutes, when it's done, the edges will shrink away from the parchment paper slightly, test with a clean knife or skewer to see whether it's done inside, it should come out completely clean
9. Take the sponges out of the oven and cool inside the tin for 5 minutes and then take it out and cool on a wired rack
10. Divid each sponge horizontally into 2 equal pieces and cool completely
11. Whilst you are waiting for the sponge to cool, skin and core the granny smith apples and chop into small pieces and blend until you get a puree
12. Mix puree with 5 tbsps of milk  and put it in a saucepan over low heat until it simmers
13. Mix 2 eggs with 50g caster sugar until well combined and then mix in the corn flour and repeat the mixing process until the mixture is smooth and silky
14. Once everything has mixed, add in a tbsp of the hot apple puree into the egg mixture and mix
15. Repeat step 14 twice
16. Pour all of the egg mixture into the simmering apple puree and mix vigorously, keeping the whole thing over a heat source
17. Put up the heat to medium and keep whisking, eventually it will boil
18. Once the mixture boils, keep whisking until it thickens and becomes smooth, but not too thick that it doesn't come off the spoon, set aside to cool completely
19. Chop the pink ladies in half and core the apple
20. Chop half of the apple into small cubes for filling and the other half into thin slices for decoration. Put all apple into lemon water to prevent it from yellowing 
21. Once apple custard has cooled, mix the apple cubes with apple custard and spread an equal amount in between each genoise sponge layer 
22. Whisk double cream until stiff and layer the entire cake with cream 
23. Decorate the top with apple slices into the shape of a flower (simply lay one of the apple on top of each other in a spiral fashion)
24. I also chopped some grapes in half to cover the edges of the cake on top, but that is purely for aesthetic purposes